Sunday, 3 June 2018

5 Apps For Travelling + Why Social Media Comes In Handy

I don't often spend time on my phone when I travel. Of course, I'm partial to the odd Instagram story because hello this is 2018but for the most part I only use my phone when I need to find something. That something could be anything from flight times to dinner spots, a taxi or a place to stay. With that being said, I thought I'd share my five go to apps for when I'm travelling.

airline app

Whenever my partner and I travel abroad, we tend to only keep our passport and phone on hand in the airport. We use the airline app to download our boarding pass so that they're on hand and we find it so helpful to have our flight information to hand. They also tend to include notifications of changes or delays which is a bonus. So far I've used the Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Thomson apps and they've all been great.

uber, lyft, curb etc

Very self explanatory but I would always rather use Uber or Lyft than hail a taxi. They're reasonably priced and you can see a rough cost estimate beforehand. Plus, having all of the drivers information on hand makes me feel safer when I'm away from home and the ability to report issues directly to Uber/Lyft if there are any makes for a great experience.

location

Obviously this depends on what's available but most major cities seem to have some form of travel guide on the App Store. Whilst in Vegas, I like to use the Vegas.com app to get a feel for what's on in town but if I'm in London, I'll always download a tube app because no matter how many times I go, I'll never know which line to get on.

airbnb

I mostly like to scout Airbnb before I travel to see get a feel for where to stay. So far I've only used it in Scotland but I couldn't believe how easy it was. I've got a tonne of saved properties which will come in handy for planning a big trip to the US or a little getaway to Spain.

instagram

Since there's so much travel content online at the moment, Instagram can also be a great place to find places to eat/drink/take photos and even for inspiration before you book a trip. While in Las Vegas, I've found some incredible places through location tags and hashtags so it's well worth a look.

When looking for recommendations, I always turn to social media first over the likes of TripAdvisor. On my recent trip to Leeds, I asked on Twitter which bars people would recommend - Joe asked me a few quick questions and came back with the best suggestions and it was bloody great to firstly, go somewhere really cool and secondly, find somewhere that wouldn't have necessarily shown up on a quick Google Search.

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What apps do you like to use when you travel? Are any of these on your list?